Since the media and Jets fans will not quit flogging Roethlisberger, Deadspin puts this story into play

Any Jets fan who wants to come here and throw rocks at Roethlisberger while trashing Steelers fans for rooting for him should take a look at another case of a college student accusing an athlete of sexual assault and no charges being brought - maybe Karen Crouse of The New York Times can write a story as to whether New York City is split over Sanchez because of these allegations

Why No One Remembers The Mark Sanchez Rape Case

A friend sent me an e-card this week. It's a woman spraying a can of Mace into the air, and the caption reads, "I can't wait to see what strategic defense the Jets use against a gigantic rapist."

The card made me laugh, and I hoped again that the Steelers would lose, even if that meant the Jets would win, for the simple reason that Ben Roethlisberger is at worst a rapist and at best a sexual bully. But then someone reminded me about Mark Sanchez.

It took a Google search, and a voyage to a time before that October 2009 GQ photo spread, but I was reminded: In April 2006, Mark Sanchez was arrested on suspicion of sexual assault. He was 19 years old, a redshirt freshman who was considered the next Matt Leinart at a time when that actually meant something good. But Sanchez went out one night (using a fake Arizona ID that listed his name as "Jordan Traver Uttal"), and he apparently did a good bit of drinking, and at some point the following day a female USC student felt compelled to call the police. Here's what the Los Angeles Times reported:

Los Angeles Police Department officers took the 19-year-old redshirt freshman into custody about 4 p.m., after a female USC student told police she had been sexually assaulted by Sanchez in the early morning. Sanchez, from Mission Viejo, was arrested at the Cardinal Gardens apartment complex at 3131 McClintock Ave.

Police would not say where the alleged assault occurred.

The security system at a nearby club Sanchez visited late Tuesday night shows him leaving at 12:59 a.m. Wednesday.

[...]

Witnesses to the arrest said the area just north of campus was swarming with police and campus safety officers as Sanchez and sophomore linebacker Brian Cushing were led away from Building E in the sprawling complex.

Cushing was released at the scene.

Sanchez was never charged, and the case dropped a couple of months later after investigators determined there was a lack of evidence. (Medical examinations of Sanchez and the alleged victim were inconclusive on "the issue of force," as the Associated Press put it. Prosecutors said it was "essentially a 'one-on-one' allegation.") Sanchez went on to earn the starting job in his junior season and was picked fifth overall by the Jets in the 2009 NFL Draft.

And still this week, with story after story about Roethlisberger's redemption two-step, and even considerable mention of New York wide receiver Santonio Holmes's assault — still, almost the only place I've seen Sanchez's history mentioned is in the comments sections of the articles that omit it. There are reasons both logical and stupid why the rape allegations against Roethlisberger remain so much a part of his public image and the ones against Sanchez have largely been forgotten. For one thing, Roethlisberger had been accused of sexual assault before he ever set foot in the Milledgeville restroom, and in the latter incident we can be certain he was guilty, at the very least, of drunken and boorish sexual behavior (whereas no details like this ever emerged from the Sanchez case). For another, Roethlisberger was already known to be kind of an asshole.

But the media seem to have gone out of the way to be sympathetic to Sanchez, and it illustrates just how flimsy and manufactured an athlete's public image can be. The press went so far as to turn the rape allegation into your standard-issue bit of sports-world adversity schlock. After he was drafted, the New York Daily News ran a brief story that touched upon the 2006 incident: "In best of times, Mark Sanchez talks about worst day of his life." Sanchez is portrayed as a repentant, deserving young man who learned from a bad experience and became an NFL-caliber quarterback because of it. "The only record connected to Sanchez's name after that was his win-loss mark as he went 12-1 with a Rose Bowl victory over Penn State," the article explains. (Imagine someone making a similar pun in a story about Roethlisberger.) Bad reputations have been built on a lot less than an unsubstantiated rape allegation. At draft time and in the run-up to the 2009 season, for instance, people made plenty of vague allusions to Percy Harvin's "character issues," which consisted of nothing more than testing positive for weed. All people talked about regarding Sanchez — who, remember, had spent a night in jail on suspicion of sexual assault — was his poise. It's amazing what some good genes and a nice set of dimples can do for your rep.

For all we know, Sanchez really was innocent and totally deserves the public image being crafted for him. But it's hard not to think that the fact he is a young, good-looking quarterback — one with a young Namath's charm and a gentle ancestral immigration story at a time of great anti-immigrant unease — made it all too easy to ignore the uglier stuff. There's a story everyone wants to tell about Sanchez, and his getting popped on a rape accusation doesn't fit.

Great stuff, to be honest I can't say I'm much better, I totally forgot about this incident. But man, what a way the press has of manipulating stories. This story about Sanchez disappeared VERY quickly, while they choose to keep the Roethlisberger incident around as long as possible.

I sick and tired of these (bleepin) rape cases with no proof of anything. If someone is raped, hospitals have a very thorough rape kit system that can determine rape from normal sex. They can get DNA, blood, sperm, etc to prove who it was. I never see any of this when some chick accuses someone of rape with these athletes and I am sick of it.

If you get raped, GO TO THE HOSPITAL, call the cops THAT DAY, get your Rape kit and if you were raped, you will win. and where are these girls father's? because if my kid was raped, Big Ben, Mark Sanchez, whoever, wouldn't have to worry about public ridicule and losing endorsements because their lives would end.

I sick and tired of these (bleepin) rape cases with no proof of anything. If someone is raped, hospitals have a very thorough rape kit system that can determine rape from normal sex. They can get DNA, blood, sperm, etc to prove who it was. I never see any of this when some chick accuses someone of rape with these athletes and I am sick of it.

If you get raped, GO TO THE HOSPITAL, call the cops THAT DAY, get your Rape kit and if you were raped, you will win. and where are these girls father's? because if my kid was raped, Big Ben, Mark Sanchez, whoever, wouldn't have to worry about public ridicule and losing endorsements because their lives would end.

The average american doesn't look into anything, they see "so and so accused of rape" and believe its true.

I sick and tired of these (bleepin) rape cases with no proof of anything. If someone is raped, hospitals have a very thorough rape kit system that can determine rape from normal sex. They can get DNA, blood, sperm, etc to prove who it was. I never see any of this when some chick accuses someone of rape with these athletes and I am sick of it.

If you get raped, GO TO THE HOSPITAL, call the cops THAT DAY, get your Rape kit and if you were raped, you will win. and where are these girls father's? because if my kid was raped, Big Ben, Mark Sanchez, whoever, wouldn't have to worry about public ridicule and losing endorsements because their lives would end.

I sick and tired of these (bleepin) rape cases with no proof of anything. If someone is raped, hospitals have a very thorough rape kit system that can determine rape from normal sex. They can get DNA, blood, sperm, etc to prove who it was. I never see any of this when some chick accuses someone of rape with these athletes and I am sick of it.

If you get raped, GO TO THE HOSPITAL, call the cops THAT DAY, get your Rape kit and if you were raped, you will win. and where are these girls father's? because if my kid was raped, Big Ben, Mark Sanchez, whoever, wouldn't have to worry about public ridicule and losing endorsements because their lives would end.

AMEN.

The new stories don't ever mention any of that. Not being able to find enough male DNA after a supposed rape is almost physically impossible if a rape or assault actually took place.

Of course, I do have to be fair though and mention that they swabbed the girl's mouth in Georgia for DNA, so she must have swallowed all the evidence... Just wondering though, without going into the "mechanics" of it, how do you force a blowjob from someone besides holding one of their loved ones hostage or something? It doesn't add up (among MANY other things in her accusation), THAT is an act that almost HAS TO BE voluntary on both parties for it to happen.....

Needless to say, after reading through all the evidence available in both cases (in Ben's cases), I amTHOROUGHLY NOT CONVINCED ANY ASSAULT TOOK PLACE.